Spider-man’s Brand Old Day
Wow. August 2007 was my last post? Really? I’m a mega slacker.
Anyway this one will deal with the Spider-Man story Brand New/One More Day. So if you haven’t read it yet or are waiting for the trades or something STOP! Hammertime… or spoilers lie ahead.
For those who have been living under a rock lately, Spidey had a life altering story going on for the last 10 months. I’ll break it down with niffty headings, cuz I’m nice like that.
Civil War
Peter unmasks to the world with Iron man backing him up, only to find out that Iron Man’s not too upfront about the fact that he’s keeping heroes and villains who don’t register in a prison without those troubling court appearances. I think Spidey’s big gripe was the fact that Iron man was actually using former villains to track down mutual friends of theirs. Any case, Peter says see ya to Iron Man (with his fist) and sticks MJ and Aunt May in a Hotel while he goes off to fight the good fight against Iron Man. Iron man in the mean time employs registered villains to hunt down Spidey. Anyway, things happen, the war is over and Spidey goes to fetch MJ and May so they can… figure out where to go now that everyone knows what he looks like. But just as he gets home a sniper opens fire on their hotel room. Spider Sense in full effect he jumps onto MJ to move her out of the way, but May is caught with a bullet in her belly.
Back in Black
Moving on a bit, Pete puts on his black threads (just as Spider-man 3 comes out! What a coincidence!) and swears to find the shooter by any means necessary. Long story short, King Pin (from jail) paid the shooter to take out Spidey and the rest of his family. Spidey shows up to the jail (can’t remember the name of it Staten Island maybe?) with intent to kill. But instead of killing him things it would be better to humiliate him in front of all his lackeys. But we still have that pesky dying Aunt/Mother figure problem.
One More Day
Now we get to the fun part. With the mounting hospital bills Peter is starting to get desperate to save his over 80 year old Aunt. So naturally he goes to his sudo-father figure Iron Man. They duke it out and Iron Man says he can’t help him if he’s unregistered. Peter blames Iron Man for his Aunt’s apparent death and moves on to another way to help. After cooling down Iron Man has a weak moment and pays for the finest medical care money can buy for May, not in his name but in Jarvais’s (his Butler) who pretends to be a distant cousin of May.
That’s great, but she’s still in a coma with no end in sight. So Spidey turns to magic and his friend Doc Strange. I wasn’t able to get this issue so I have no idea what happened, but clearly nothing major as when I pick up the story we still have May in a coma. In comes Mephisto!
Mephisto is pretty much the devil in Marvel’s universe. He’s popped up randomly in some of the more magic and cosmic oriented heroes. Mephisto wants to make a deal, he’ll save May’s life in exchange for Peter and MJs marriage. Up all he has to do to save his elderly Aunt is give up on his wife. A simple no for most logical people. The woman is in her 80s and she lead a full life, but not Pete. For some reason he’s undecided. So MJ makes the deal for him and Pete then agrees. I’ll say that again for you. Both Peter and MJ think their lives together isn’t worth the handful of years May has left. Have they been having marriage issues we weren’t aware of? So the Parkers make a deal with the devil and May lives.
Brand New Day
Now we join Peter in his bachelor pad… meaning his Aunt’s home. He’s had a cash flow problem, so he moved back in. (Not that I can say much about that). Then he goes to a party where we see Harry Osborne who is alive and well and we are randomly introduced to other female characters (clearly future love interests) and of course Peter finds MJ and watches her walk out. Harry comments on how they (Pete and MJ) still aren’t talking.
End of Review.
This could have been done so many different better ways. I get that the editors didn’t want Spider-Man married. Saying a married guy should be settling down not adding more drama (and comics are about drama). I can even agree with that a little. Peter was getting older. Which works for me. Spider-Man was growing with my generation. Which doesn’t sound like what Marvel wants. They would like him to forever be 23ish.
However, there are a crap-ton of plot holes in this story. Like how is Aunt May’s house not burned to the ground (happened just before Civil War, hence the reason why they moved into Iron Man’s home.)? Supposedly nothing changed except the marriage. Mostly all the stories happened, it was just that Peter was single. They keep saying that something happened on the wedding day so that they didn’t pull the trigger. So what happened with that?
Why would you agree to abolish your marriage for a woman who might not even make it another 3 years. I get that it’s like Peter’s mother figure, but seriously! I would hope that May would say “Just let me die”. It seemed like a no brainer. And wouldn’t Loki have been a better choice for this? Those not in the loop: Spidey saved Loki’s daughter a few months before Civil War and Loki said he owed him one. The man’s a god, surely he could bring people back from the dead/coma.
This story would have made so much more sense if MJ was the one that was shot and he made a deal to save her in exchange for his marriage. Would even be better if Peter remembers everything, but no one else in his time line does. He’d have this longing for her but nothing he could do about it.
Hopefully some of these holes will be patched up in the next few issues. If not I have to decide if I want to renew my spidey comics (which come out 3 times a month now… tripling the monthly cost) or not.